host: hello again. israel's most senior military commander revealed the development of new offensive plans against iran. he says he ordered his forces to step up preparations for possible military action in the coming year. he is urging u.s. president joe biden to step back from any return to the 2015 nuclear deal. scientists believe the real number of coronavirus cases is likely to be higher because of low levels of testing in 2020.

more than 100,000 people in the u.k. died of covid-19. britain recorded around 3.6 million infections. >> on this day i should repeat that i am deeply sorry for every life that has been lost and as prime minister i take full responsibility for everything the government has done. what i can tell you is we truly did everything we could and continue to do everything we can to minimize loss of life and minimize suffering in a very difficult stage in a difficult crisis for our country. host: the united states senate sworn in 100 senators to act as jurors in the second impeachment trial of donald trump, which starts next month.

trump is accused of inciting an insurrection to his supporters before they stormed the capitol building. ugandan's opposition leader says the police siege on his home was a form of torture. he had been under house arrest since the election he claims was fraudulent. security forces lifted the blockade after a court order. world leaders have called for more funding to protect vulnerable communities on the final date of the climate adaptation summit in the hague. they want to ensure young people are included in the climate conversation. you are up-to-date with the headlines on al jazeera. i will have more news for you after "inside story." thanks for watching. ♪

>> a strongman weakened by a virus. protesters call for the impeachment of brazil's president over the covid-19 crisis. will he survive? what does it mean for populism in the region? this is "inside story." ♪ host: hello and welcome to the show. he's been a staunch coronavirus skeptic, but now brazil's president is in the hot seat for his handling of the pandemic. thousands have taken to the streets, demanding he be impeached over the nation's

health crisis. recent polls show his approval ratings have declined. many people are calling on him to leave office. bolsonaro has been blamed for a lack of government planning and underlay enrolling out vaccines. brazil is among the worst hit countries, with the second largest number of covid-19 deaths. theyy st-- they stand at more than 215,000. hospitals are overstretched and oxygen supplies are running low. >> i feel as if brazil doesn't have a government. brazil has been left to fend for itself. we have psychopaths in power. no one can take it anymore. we are not going to wait for one million of our people to die to rise up. no one can take it anymore. >> there is all this horrible fake news deceiving people. the president's disapproval

rating is greater than his approval. gather strength. we have to get rid of that guy or brazil will go under. out with bolsonaro. host: the populist and conservative president took office in 2019 after defeating leftists who ruled for decades. his victory witas seen as support for favre -- was seen as support for growing far right movements across the country. his views on race, sexual orientation and gender have provoked controversy. the president labeled coronavirus as "a little flu" and sent contradictory messages about masks and social messaging. he has been sued by indigenous leaders over damaged caused by his environmental policies. let's bring our guests into the

shop. -- into the show. we have a senior principal analyst focusing on brazil at ihs market. in sao paulo, we have a professor of public administration. and in london, we have the head of a research group on latin america at middlesex university. welcome to you all. gabriella, how much of a threat are the current protests in the street? >> hi, everybody. it is an honor to be here with you. we started having the protests, finally, after a long period of decrease of the approval of the president. now we don't know what is going on. all the situation in brazil --

we discussed impeachment, but we don't have any agreement about the next state. in order to have an impeachment, we have to have an agreement. we had two protests, one on saturday and one on sunday. the saturday one was about people on the left side and the sunday was the right side. the society is very divided, but everybody is somehow blaming the president now about the economic and pandemic crisis. host: interesting. how significant is it, although it is not clear if there is a consensus, that parts of the right wing have joined the protests, even if it is on a different day? >> i think it is very significant. bolsonaro has been weakened for a while now. he started at 55%.

now he is much lower. on top of that, he had a majority party in terms of seats in the congress, 56. this party is now in the region of 22, 23. he is facing 400 requests -- sorry, 47 requests of impeachment from various political parties. the organizations range from gross violation of human rights, including terminal activity. this is while -- the crucial question for me is this, will the elite in the congress and in the senate be brave enough to actually vote? it seems to me that is where the problem lies. if you were to compare the

accusations against dilma rousseff with bolsonaro, there is little significance. the majority of the congress voted to impeach her. when it comes to him, it is different. the reason is they are worried about what comes after that if he goes. that is where the hesitation lies within the elite, particularly the political class in congress. host: that takes us nicely to the next point. when you evaluate the risk facing brazil right now, what is it? what would happen if he is impeached? where does that leave the country? >> let me first say, in our base

case scenario, we don't think there is right now a significant likelihood of president bolsonaro being impeached. i agree totally his support in the opinion polls is at 40% rejection rate. it is the worst since he was elected. that is quite clear. the media and opposition is asking for his impeachment. the situation now is extremely bad for him, but we need to look closely at the way politics operates in brazil. dilma rousseff was mentioned here. one of the problems dilma rousseff had, she was very bad at finding the right coalitions.

i think she was very inflexible. that is why think she was impeached. bolsonaro has shown more dexterity to bring people together. for us, the critical indicator would be the speaker of the lower house and the president of the senate in february. the latest information we have is the leader in the lower house is the favorite to win the election. host: the upcoming elections, rather than being a risk to him, will most likely strengthen his position in congress? >> i am talking about the election of the leadership of congress, which takes place on the first of february. the current speaker of the house , the outgoing one, is a declared enemy of bolsonaro.

he has a candidate he is supporting. the latest tally suggests the leader is going to win that race. the leader wins, the reach of him being impeached would diminish significantly. the reigning guy will be the speaker of the house, because he is the person that has to accept or reject a request for impeachment, as was mentioned before. 57 requests for his impeachment has made him, the outgoing, never table those requests. if the leader wins the lower house, i see less possibility of this happening. nonetheless, the decline in popularity will undermine bolsonaro's chances of getting

elected in 2022. he is losing support that was behind him in -- support from the base that was behind him in 2018. host: when you take into account the drop in popularity -- i think the last poll on friday talked about an 8% or 7% decrease in popularity in a relatively short period of time. can one count on the senate, the chamber of deputies being in different to -- being indifferent to the rising distrust in the president? >> to think about impeachment in brazil, we have to think about

four different reasons. there is the legal one. it is obvious we have all the legal situation in order to have an impeachment. we have to think about the support from the citizens. this is decreasing. that is why we had the protests. we have to think about the support from the elite. we still have a lot of businessmen supporting bolsonaro, and they fund the parties, so it is important to think about that. the fourth reason you can make an impeachment move on is the fiscal support, but the president, the leader of the congress has an important role, because he approves the impeachment. he will listen to all of these

other reasons. he will listen to the society, to the elite. he makes the decision. there is a lot of discussion behind the scenes. host: how far can he go in ignoring polls? there are some scenarios talking about his popularity could reach into the 20's, at which point it would be hard for congress to ignore the impeachment calls. >> it depends how the 80% of the others are strong enough to make an impeachment to happen. as i was just saying, we have the financial power, then we will not go on with impeachment. the congress are not only listening to the society, but there are a lot of other things going on in this kind of discussion. host: interesting. to what extent was the covid

outbreak a political turning point? >> the issue concentrated on maneuvers, which is important in terms of understanding what happened. it ignores completely the rest of the context. ever since he has been in charged, brazil has gone down dramatically on every scoring index. brazil was a very strong voice in the world. the economy was growing quite dramatically. income distribution was getting better all the time. now it is exactly the opposite, but with a vengeance. it is very bad. his attitude regarding the covid-19 pandemic has been appalling. it's worse than donald trump

multiplied by 10. as a result, people are dying visibly because of his lack of competence and complete disregard for the well-being of his own people. my issue is, how can the key sections of the elite in parliament ignore these when they have venezuela send them oxygen? venezuela is sending oxygen literally every seven days. it already sent 136,000 liters of oxygen. he continues to have this attitude. if, as a result of parliamentary maneuvers, ignoring situations like the rest of the society, continues,

then there are options. -- are options. the government of bolsonaro is heavily militarized. some unsavory characters who haven't got democratic views. the ministry may be tempted to go gain more prominence, which is not good for brazil, not good for anybody. host: hang on, what kind of measures are you hinting at? >> if the military acquires more prominence, and these protests appear to be the case already, they risk repression. repression does not help the people. the people are in the streets. this is going to continue.

if you look at what is going on in the rest of the country, repression produces the opposite finally, in terms of trump being defeated, how can anybody legitimately continue with such crass attitude toward politics? host: it is a good thing you mentioned that. that segues nicely into my next question. how much of these protests and impeachment movement have been inspired by what's happened to donald trump in the u.s.? >> what's clear now, that is one of the reasons of the protests, that bolsonaro was having a strategy of being supported by trump. part of his discourse and

attitudes were based on the idea that trump was doing the same. now that trump lost the election, and most of all the way he did it after the election made it clear to brazilians that trump was not a good solution and brazil does not have support of the usa any longer. this will be a problem for us in the future. host: do you think as we see protests pickup in the u.s., that might rub off on brazil as well? >> of course. it is clear for resilience supporting trump and bolsonaro that -- for brazilians supporting trump and bolsonaro that this was a mistake. this is why the impeachment can grow. again, i don't think we have a clear situation of each man right now. -- of impeachment right now. the impeachment of trump

increases the chances of -- host: of it happening in brazil. can we make this assumption that when you look at what's happened to donald trump and what's happening to bolsonaro, is the tide turning against populism in the americas? >> that kind of populism. trump became extremely popular with some extreme views. now they have been completely discredited. people in the u.s. can see where they lead to. they lead to very undemocratic practices. imagine regime change being brought to the united states by the u.s. president himself. anyone who resembles trump, now that trump is facing impeachment

and the possibility of a trial and conviction, bolsonaro has not modified his views, which have continued to be crass. in the face of this crisis, he is concentrated on maneuvers that are not going to strengthen him, it will weaken those who support him. host: we have been talking about the health risk, the political risk. is there an economic risk building as well? it might not be the most prominent thing, but when you look at the numbers, government spending shut up 40%, are harder times right around the corner? >> i said at the beginning, and i agree that right now there is

no condition for impeachment, not only because of the covid lockdown, the possibility of having millions on the streets is not there yet. bolsonaro is facing two major risks. one, as the second wave of covid-19 claims more lives and he is out of his depth, he cannot handle that. the second is the income transfer that made him temporarily popular in 2020 came to oan end -- to an end in december. brazil is a broke country. host: austerity measures, a rise in interest rates? >> that is the thing for bolsonaro. he could go into populist

measures and try to bring back this relief package, but there is no money. host: the corona package. >> he does that, there is no money to do it. he does that, he will lose the confidence of the financial markets. brazil will be downgraded. the access of brazil to capital markets will be more complicated. as the coronavirus gets out of control and he continues blocking vaccines, etc., the possibility on impeachment will increase. you need to take into consideration these factors. there is also the question of timing. many of the people that wanted him impeached in the political

party will say, okay, he has committed a lot of crimes here, but the best action for us is to start building a coalition to defeat him in 2022. that possibility is also there. host: i think we've got a couple minutes left. if the situation is deteriorating economically, politically becoming more unstable, and health-wise we know the challenge there, is this translating into more of an opportunity for the left? why isn't there a consensus among the non-bolsonaro or anti-bolsonaro forces? >> we are facing a disruption between two ideas that support the government. we don't know how bolsonaro will deal with it. bolsonaro is governing with

populist policies. cash transfer brought him many support from the poor people. at the same time, he had a lot of support from the liberal agenda. right now it is impossible to conciliate the popular and liberal agenda. both actors are trying to force him to make a decision. will he make the reforms the liberal agenda wants him to do, will he keep doing cash transfer programs even if we don't have enough money? these kinds of decisions bolsonaro will have to do right now. this will make him lose support from one part of the story. the health dimension is getting worse and worse. we have no perspectives of getting better because we don't have the vaccines. the bull's narrow government fought -- bolsonaro government fought with china and india and

pfizer and everybody this week. this makes people die more. at the same time, it makes the economy don't increase because we don't have the vaccination. we have a moment of a lot of crises. it depends on how the government will deal with them and which decisions he will make in order to know what support he will be able to have. among the populists, more of the liberal agenda, it is a bad moment for bolsonaro. host: thanks so much to our guests. and thank you for watching. you can see the show again any time by visiting our website, aljazeera.com. for more conversation, head to our facebook page. you can also join the

conversation on twitter. for the whole team here, for now it's goodbye. ♪

diep tran: i think people are aware of vietnamese cuisine, and most people don't want that cuisine to change or don't want to have their understanding of the cuisine to change. because the cuisine is changing all the time. the idea of a, like, this unifying national cuisine, vietnamese cuisine, it doesn't exist. really, it truly doesn't exist. even a unified vietnamese identity doesn't exist. [dings] like, it's kind of like saying italians--defined by tomatoes and olive oil. what people see as essential, it's because they're looking from like an outsider's point of view, and it's not granular.